OBJECTIVITY
OF MORAL
JUDGMENTS
In what sense are moral
judgments possible?
.
It is usually agreed that
the validity of the moral Opinions and must
judgments of any be ascertained by
individual is independent some more
of his own feelings objective standard.
2
But what determines the standard?
Is it simply the moral
consciousness of the society in
which he lives?
Or there are
Either it is objective
subjective PROBLEM
moral
standard
Determined by the
Valid for all of humanity
moral
from one generation to
consciousness of the next
the period 3
There are moral intuitions of
good
Unanalyzable No intelligent person
and irreducible can deny their truth,
any more than he can
A PRIORI
deny the truth of the
Fundamental, most elementary
formal and devoid principles of
of contents mathematics
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Henry Sidgwick thought that he could
discover three axioms of the good
Prudence Benevolenc
Justice e
QUANTITY
The good is desirable than the less
good 5
Thesis: “MORAL JUDGMENTS ARE
DEDUCIBLE ONLY FROM
QUANTITATIVE GOODS”.
Problem
Are there intrinsic types of goods?
LOVE Friendship
BEAUTY
In a sense the goodness of these values is
self-evident, disinterested, intrinsic.
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VIRTUES
However, these intrinsic goods INSTRUMENTAL VALUE
cannot be stated in any a
priori way, apart from Promote and increase
experience and calculation of love, beauty and
consequences, that would friendship
indicate what all men in all ages
have, or ought to have,
acknowledged
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ISSUE
It follows, therefore, that while there are various
notions like "good," "bad," "ought," "love,"
"friendship," and "beauty" that have intrinsic
moral value, it is impossible to deduce from
them, a priori, moral judgments that would
hold universally.
8
MORAL JUDGMENTS ARE
CONSTANTLY REVISED AND
IMPROVED FROM TIME TO TIME
9
How are moral
judgments revised?
The concept of the
good is revised time
and again through:
10
Identify the good
with pleasure, and
measure it
quantitatively.
UTILITARIAN
TEST
That action should be
adopted which will
bring the greatest
pleasure to the
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The good is its coherence
KANTIAN TEST with a rule or law (C.I.)
We certainly ought to will what we might
rationally desire to become universal practice,
and we cannot think it right to permit
ourselves to do what we should condemn in
others.
12
People differ today on moral issues
because of no fault of revised
utilitarian and Kantian tests but
because the full data to which
these tests should be applied are
not available or are not fully
understood.
13
What are we then to KANTIAN
conclude?
UTILITARIAN
The content of the good
AGE/PERIOD TESTS
REFLECTIVE APPLICATION
14
However, decisions can be rendered only
in the light of the knowledge and
.
experience available to the age. There is
no way to be absolutely sure that future
ages, with wider experience and greater
social and economic achievements, will
decide in all cases as we have done.
15
We, however, can see more dearly than
the generation before us, because we
.
are able not only to profit by the fruits of
their experience, as handed down to us
in the moral tradition, but to add our own
experience to it.
16
It reveals that
The work of .
there has, on the
comparative ethics
whole, been a line
is constructive as
of moral
well as destructive.
development or
progress.
17
For so long as man remains
man, his instincts will continue
to have about the same
relative
. intensity and other
characteristics.
They will not be Changes in social
altered by organization and
inheritance of education will not
acquired modify the innate
characters. mental
constitution
18
Children a thousand years hence will
be born with the same native
.
instincts and emotions of fear,
pugnacity, self-assertion,
tenderness, sociability, sex,
acquisitiveness, and
constructiveness as today.
19
In other words, instincts can never be
permitted to develop in a random way
.
into sentiments that would be
unfavourable for the welfare of
individuals and the common good of
society. Sentiments, on the other
hand, must ever be rationally guided
and cultivated into virtues.
20
A virtue is a sentiment
which grows through the
efforts of the individual
and the moral.
education
that society affords him.
The relative strength of instincts
differs in individuals, and results
in various types of character or
personality.
21
The only moral values we know or
can seek
. are those which we learn
from reflection on human
experience our own, and theirs
before us to whom we owe our
moral tradition.
22
In conclusion, then, ethics has
an objective basis in two general
ways:
Social
Period to organization
period
PERSONALITY
Ethical Native
development instincts
23
Thanks!
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